Projects

The Building Resilience Against Violent Extremism (BRAVE) measure is now available for download. BRAVE is a brief questionnaire tool that can be used to assess risk and protective factors for young people’s resilience to violent extremism.

The Child & Youth Refugee Research Coalition is a coalition started by the Resilience Research Centre's Dr. Michael Ungar to connect scholars, community partners and government agencies committed to promoting the successful integration of refugee children, youth and their families. While the Coalition was formed to contribute meaningfully to policies and interventions to facilitate the integration of recently arrived Syrian refugees to Canada, it has a much larger goal of helping all young refugees succeed, both in Canada and around the world.

Oil and gas production and climate change have large impacts on social, economic and environmental systems that affect young people’s mental health and overall wellbeing. To better understand these complex relationships at both ends of the carbon cycle (production and consumption), the five-year multinational CIHR funded Resilient Youth in Stressed Environments (RYSE) research project will study the resilience of young people in Canada and South Africa. Visit the website now:

Introduction:

As many scholars and policy analysts have made clear, the nature of contemporary terrorism and political violence is evolving. While terrorist violence has indeed been rare in Canada, we are nevertheless not immune from it. Cases like the Air India bombing of 1985, the Toronto 18 plot of 2006, as well as instances of Canadian youth travelling overseas to fight on behalf of foreign groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia are all cause for concern. Canada’s counter-terrorism strategy, entitled Building Resilience Against Terrorism, calls on law enforcement to not only “prevent, detect, deny, and respond” to terrorist activity in Canada, but also to build community resilience against the spread of extremist ideas and to prevent radicalization to violence.

The complexity of the issue, then, lies in the fact that violent extremists do not have an easily distinguishable character trait, and come from a wide variety of religious, ethnic, regional, and socio-economic backgrounds. Similarly, while certain grievances against Canadian society and culture as well as national and foreign policy may indeed be precursors to violent radicalization, the question remains: why do the vast majority of individuals who hold grievances remain nonviolent? This study focuses on the resilience and pro-social expression of dissent among youth who experience themselves as marginalized or silenced. While it is important to understand what radicalizes youth to the point of violence, it is also important to identify culturally specific and population wide factors that support the engagement of youth without that engagement leading to violence.

The study of resilience shifts the focus of research from psychopathology and disorder to the individual, social, economic and political factors that predict positive and prosocial development, social cohesion, cultural adherence, relationships, powerful identities, individual and social efficacy, and many other influences on behaviour. A social ecological understanding of resilience decenters our understanding of resilience, arguing that much more of a person’s positive development under stress can be accounted for by external rather than internal factors. Applied to the problem of homegrown terrorism or radicalization, we need to investigate in contextually sensitive ways why the vast majority of young people resist violence even as they become engaged. How do they experience the psychosocial benefits associated with resilience without resorting to violence? What pathways do they follow, and what do their families, communities and governments provide them with that make it more likely they will become resilient without becoming a violent extremist? Our study, funded by Public Safety Canada’s Kanishka Project, is among the very first in the world to investigate the social ecologies of resilience that prevent violent extremism.

Lead Investigators:

Transitioning from one service to another can be a confusing and stressful process, especially for youth. The risks they face in the home or community, as well as their strengths and abilities impact what services youth are referred to. The Pathways to Resilience Project seeks to better understand how youth navigate between mandated services (child welfare, education, mental health, and youth justice) to successful outcomes.